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good morning church it's good to be in the house of the Lord um today's scripture reading is taken from the Book of Joshua CH 24: 1- 15 verse one Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Sheck and summoned the elders the heads the judges and the officers of Israel and they presented themselves before God and Joshua said to all the people thus says the Lord the god of Israel long ago your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates terara the father of Abraham and of Noor and they serve other gods then I took a father
Abraham from beyond the river and led him through all the lands of Canaan and made his offspring many I gave him Isaac and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau and I gave Esau the hill countries of s here to possess but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt and I sent Moses and Aaron and I plagued Egypt with what I did in the midst of it then afterward I brought you out then I brought your fathers out of Egypt and you came to the Sea and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and Horsemen to
the wed SE and when they cried to the Lord he put Darkness between you and the Egyptians and made the sea come upon them and cover them and your eyes saw what I did in Egypt and you lived in the wilderness a long time then I brought you to the land of the amorites who lived on the other side of Jordan they fought with you and I gave them into your hand and you took possessions of the land and I destroy them before you then balac the son of zapor King of Moab Rose and fought again Israel and he sent and invited balam the
son of beor to curse you but I would not listen to balam indeed he blessed you so I deliver you out of his hand and you went over to the Jordan and came to Jericho and the leaders of Jericho fought against you and also the amorites the parites the Canaanites the hites the gites the hites and the jebusites and I gave them into your hand and I sent the Hornet before you which drove them out before you the two kings of the amorites it was not by your sword or by your bow I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities
that you had not built and you dwell in them you eat the fruit of Vineyards and Olive orchids that you did not plant now therefore fear the lord and serve him him in sincerity and in faithfulness put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord and if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord choose this day whom you will serve whether the gods of Father served in the region beyond the river or the gods of the amorites whose land you dwell but as for me and my house we will serve the
Lord this is the word of God thank you very much uh Clementine for reading the scriptures for us oh before I get started uh just a couple of announcements what to look forward to uh next week uh the preacher will be pastor Raymond Raj uh when you know during the Chinese New Year week I suppose God's greatest plan in life's worst pain and then coming up will be Jonah the fish story Revisited by Elder Eden and uh on 16th of February hope Beyond the Grave by our brother Brendan Wong right uh good morning to all of you
church right and uh I think as to say Happy New Year to all of you and a very blessed Chinese New Year I see some of you all wearing uh your new year uh red color uh you know shirts and uh dresses now we've just begun 20 2025 okay uh and the Chinese New Year will be ushered in uh next week so while the year is still fresh I thought it'll be a fitting time for us to talk about rededicating our lives to God now that's exactly what we find Joshua doing with the people of Israel in our passage today which Clem has just
read for us now in some of your Bibles right you know in heading the uh Joshua chapter 24 okay it says Covenant renewal okay so it's about God's people reaffirming the Covenant that they made with God okay in this particular context now before we go further let us commit the time to the Lord in prayer the heavenly father as we come for you to listen to you through your word I pray Lord that you grant us illumination of our minds and more importantly to open up our hearts that our Lives May indeed be transformed by what we hear
Lord grant me humility that it is not I who speak but it is you through me but we ask all this in Jesus name amen let's see this working so what is a covenant right now one Theologian defines it like this a covenant is a sacred agreement between God and his people that establishes a kinship Bond now here kinship means family bonds so the bonds are really close now it is not like uh what we would term as a contract today which actually governs the relationship and sometimes a casual one right between two
parties like in a business transaction okay uh a contract right is the exchange of property in the form of goods or services okay this is mine and this is yours okay and it can be very transactional and impersonal uh whereas when it comes to a covenant okay uh the Covenant is really an exchange of people the loyalties to one another okay and it involves making and keeping vows and and and creating a shared Bond of interpersonal communion now a very good example about a confidental relationship uh is what we
would find in a wedding you know where an excited man and an excited woman right pledges their life together to be committed in a relationship in a loving relationship for the rest of their life so if you apply a contract in marriage today there's prob probably what we would call the prenuptual agreement isn't it very selfish okay but a covenant is for life now just for the context right the Covenant that we are talking about here all right is actually the Mosaic Covenant okay that God made with his
people right at Mount Sinai you remember right before God gave the Ten Commandments uh God actually made a covenant through Moses with with his people and this is recorded for us in Exodus chapter 19 right: 5 to8 now it says in verse 5 if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my Covenant you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples and then the people answered in verse 8 all the people answered together and said all that the Lord has spoken we will do so in this particular Covenant God promises to be the god of Israel and
to bless them all right and in return the people of Israel will obey God's commandment now as we begin uh in chapter 24 of Joshua I want you to picture this okay this is back in Mount Si all right after they have come out of Egypt but the scene before us in chapter 24 right is something like 30 years after they have beged the conquest of the promised land Joshua has succeeded Moses right as the leader of the people remember Moses wasn't allowed to enter the promised land all right and so josua was the one who had to bring the people
to cross the Jordan in order to claim what God had promised at this juncture Joshua is a very old man all right and as leader of his people you can imagine the burden on his heart you know and of course Joshua would very much hope that after he has departed from the scene the people of Israel will continue to be faithful to their God and the location right where this Covenant renewal is taking place is actually a place called sheam okay now I want to spend a little bit of time right explaining the significance of shakam
why this location is selected so it we read in verse one Joshua gathered all the tribes in Israel to sheam and summoned the elders the haes the judges and the officers of Israel and they presented themselves before God in the presence of God now if you look at the map right you can basically see the territory that the is Israel the the Israelites right have actually conquered it's quite a vast uh uh area of land in the kingdom and sheam right is somewhere in the middle of that east of the Jordan
River now it is very significant because sheam R is a city that is sandwiched between two big mountains mount gism on one side and mount iel on the other okay so you can imagine in the valley when Joshua was addressing the people you know his voice would be echoing right okay back right from these two mountains but there's a reason why this place is selected because when they were in the wilderness okay God commanded them through Moses that when they cross the River Jordan okay and begin the conquest they are to
reconsecrate themselves to him in other words once you cross the River Jordan you are supposed to set up an altar right okay and do a covenant renewer to remind the people right of their vows to God and this is recorded for us in Deuteronomy right 11 okay uh see I'm setting before you today a blessing and a curse okay why a blessing and a curse okay uh and when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possess possession of it you shall set the blessing on Mount gism and the curse on Mount eal so what
God is trying to do here is to tell the people when you cross over to begin your Conquest okay I want you to rededicate your lives to me right and I will reconfirm my promise to you and you have before you two very graphical uh image right in the mountain to remind you that if you obey me you will receive blessings on the one hand all right Mount gism And if you don't you'll be cursed on the other hand Mount eal which is true I if you look at the history of Israel all right whenever Israel all right obeyed the Lord the
Lord captured their enemies and gave it to Israel and when they don't they would lose the battle and know and in history tells us that some years later indeed because of Israel's Rebellion right they actually had to go into Exile and they forfeited the land now that renewal of vows actually took place right earlier on right in the Book of Joshua in chapter 8 okay so when Joshua actually captured Jericho and after that AI okay uh he gather the people in the same spot okay and we read it in Joshua chapter 8 and all Israel
sajonas as well as native born and all the elders and officers and so on and so forth sounds familiar okay and half of them in front of Mount gism and the other half in front of Mount eel so that was the first rededication today in our passage is the second one now there are also two other very significant fact all right that we have to take note of and why this place is chosen the first is recorded for us in Genesis 12 shech was the place where God first appeared to Abram and promised him the land right and then Abram built there an
alar to the Lord who had appeared to him so sheam was the place where God first called Abraham all right and got from him his commandment I mean he basically gave a coven made a covenant with Abraham that through you you will have many offspring and through you and your Offspring right all the world will be blessed but then we come two generations down right okay in sheam is also the place right where Jacob Abraham's grandson when you know at the lowest point in his life okay and when he had a moment of
Reawakening all right to God's faithfulness and God told him to go back to bael right to worship Him Jacob right instructed his household to Buri all their idols and guess where they buried the idols is in a place near sheam so Joshua is very aware of the history of of their own history you know Joshua is saying all right to the people of Israel basically remember you are now gathered here this place is very significant because this is a place all right of commitment right and of abandoning your Idols so the stage is
really set okay now this tells us something you know very important about the gravity right and the solemnness of the occasion of the Covenant right that God has made with us bless blessing on one hand curse if you disobey calling and commitment on the one hand and abandoning Idols right on the other and you'll find out as we read along right why this Concepts right are so significant okay in what Joshua is about to tell them so let's quickly move on so the first thing right when it comes to Covenant renewal right involves
remembering God's faithfulness so you read right if you have your Bibles open from verse 2 to verse 13 Joshua basically goes on a narrative right whereby he recounted the history of Israel from the time of Abraham's calling right right up to the present time where they were now now I I want you to imagine when Joshua is recounting all right the the faithfulness of God and what he has done for the people you know he did it you know you can imagine it as something like a miniseries okay uh with four
parts or four episodes all right uh and as we go through how God has been faithful to the people of Israel uh it will be helpful right for us like to keep in mind uh these four uh episodes now in verse two we read and Joshua said to all the people thus sayith the Lord the god of Israel long ago your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates Tera the father of Abraham and of nahor and they served other gods so the first episode right has got to do with the Patriarchs okay the Patriarchs um do you know that Abraham
was actually an idol worshipper Abraham comes from a background and family uh of pagans all right and they worship idols but God did not hold Abraham's Idol idolatrous passed against him in fact he called Abraham into a covenant relationship ship with himself and promised him that through Abraham and his descendants all the world will be blessed now the Bible tells us that when God called Abraham how old was he anybody Those Old Testament scholar Abraham was about 75 years old okay now can you imagine all right that
for a person Abraham most of his life he was living in darkness was worshiping Idols living in sin all right doing all the the things that you know that are basically futle but yet God in his grace and his Mercy caught Abraham out of Darkness transformed him and made him a vital part of his Redemptive plan now I also want you to consider the other two Patriarchs right Abraham's descendant Bible tells us that what who is Abraham's son Isaac okay now Isaac is very different from Abraham because he
did not grow up right in an Pagan Society he is the Other Extreme you know Abraham and Sarah right must have be very careful to raise him up right okay according to true of Promise isn't it okay and yet you know uh this probably uh represents some of us here who who grew up in a uh Christian family God is able to draw Isaac to himself all right and also transform him and use him all right for his purpose and then we come to Jacob all right now Jacob like Isaac also grew up in a environment of truth but like Isaac this guy is a
naughty boy right okay we know that Jacob right he was a schemer he was a deceiver right we all read the story right in Sunday school how he cheated his brother out of his Birthright and he even cheated his father and he had to escape for his life but God is still able to use him and transform him for his purpose in fact right we read right in history that Jacob later part of his life okay he was so transformed that he actually went back right to seek out Esau right in order to reconcile with him such was his
humility so what's the point that I'm trying to get at is this that no matter where you find yourself in life whether like Abraham you are steep in the grip of idolatry in darkness or in sin God is able to take you out of that situation and transform you for his glory or whether you're like Isaac no you grew up in a God-fearing environment and you Faithfully come to church attend Bible studies you grw up with boys Brigade okay and you're wondering right whether God has a higher purpose for you what God can reveal
himself to you in Greater ways and draw you closer to himself and use you for his service or if you are like Jacob you know a renegade okay and you slip away right from the household of FL God can also take that wretched person saved him sanctify him and use him right as part of his plan now still continuing with the Patriarchs right okay then I took your father Abraham from beyond the river and led him through through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many I gave him Isaac and to Isaac I
gave Jacob and Esau now this is very interesting and I gave Esau the Hill Country of SE to possess but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt why is it that Joshua would bother to mention this little fact that Esau was given country well basically right if you look at it Abraham was given two promises one that he would be the father of many offsprings which is recorded here right okay and two that he will possess a land many offsprings when Abraham heard it right okay together with Sarah he must be wondering I God what are you
talking about I'm already 75 years old he must looking at his wife and now the Bible tells us that his wife Sarah is a very you know good-look woman but still you know looking at his body and his organs and his wrinkles right he must be wondering how how is that possible because biologically it is impossible and then the piece of land you know we know that the promise is given right down a particular lineage isn't it it is from Abraham to Isaac all right to Jacob okay but in this instance right the guy
who got the piece of land is not Jacob is his brother Esau and then Jacob and his children had to go down to Egypt at that particular point in the history of the Israelites can you imagine how improbable it is to imagine how God's promises could be fulfilled and yet in spite of all this circum ances in spite of all this improbability right Joshua is basically looking at the people and says look look at you now right look around you look at the land that you currently possess look at the number of people
right that you're representing the 12 tribes of Israel must be millions of them so the point is God doesn't work or think like us his ways are much higher than our ways his thoughts are much higher than our thoughts okay and he works right in the realm of impossibility something that we cannot even begin to comprehend so from the beginning to the end all right God work out his purposes through the people through events through difficult circumstances right and he accomplishes and he makes make sure that his promises are being
kept the point is this we can find so much comfort in that when God promises it's going to come to pass maybe not at our own timing but eventually it will so God faithfulness in keeping his promises now in episode two all right the focus shifts to The Exodus then I sent Moses and Aaron and Afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there and I brought you out now we all know the story right of the Exodus okay the Israelites right were in Egypt now Egypt symbolizes something we all know what does it symbolize
symbolizes enslavement right bondage the condition of being in sin darkness and God hears the cries of his people for salvation in Exodus chapter 2 during those many days the king of Egypt died and the people of Israel groan because of their slavery and cried out for help their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God and God responded by sending Aaron and Moses to rescue them so that should give us Comfort isn't it it tells us that if you are a place of Darkness if you know your condition and
you want to get out of your condition and if you're are desperate enough to call out to God God will deliver you with his salvation now we know that during the journey all right the very famous scene of God parting the Red Sea isn't it I mean it's all shown in movies and in cartoons right okay and what happens right when God brings the people through the Red Sea we read in verse six when I brought your people out of Egypt you came to the Sea and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and Horsemen as far as the Red
Sea this is Joshua recounting but they cried to the Lord for help again they cried to the Lord for help okay and he put Darkness between you and the Egyptians so God responds not only when you cried out to him for salvation back in Egypt right but at the moment of trouble when they couldn't cross the Red Sea when the egyp when the Israelites cried out to God God responded as well so the point is this God doesn't save you and then you know abandon you Heaven is opened right not only at the time of salvation but throughout a
Christian's Journey that whenever right we cry out to God God will respond to us doesn't that give us comfort in our prayers right we all gathered right yesterday for prayer meeting and we can be sure for those of us who pray and we cry out to the Lord in desperation that God would answer our prayers because he is faithful so God is faithful right in his Deliverance now the third episode Right Moves the historical account from the Wilderness to the trans Jordan area in a place called boab all right just before the
crossing of the the Jordan River okay and Joshua continue right his account of the history right when baac son of zipo the king of Moab prepared to fight against Israel he sent for balam Son of beor to put a curse on you but I would not listened to balam so he blessed you again and again and I delivered you out of his hand God refused to let balum curse his people now we know the story right the story of balum and the donkey and God actually spoke through the donkey okay so the troops right of the
Israelites were advancing okay towards Moab and the king of Moab spooked all right says I've heard you know of Stories of the conquest we can't stand against them all right so when he couldn't physically fight them right he invoked spiritual Powers so he engaged the help right of a warlord called balum okay and to get him to curse Israel but God intervened okay and instead right of cursing Israel okay bam had no choice he was constrained by God's power right to bless the people of God now BM right represents to us
what the Satan all right the forces of darkness and this is what we experience as Christians didn't it Bible tells us we fight against not flesh and blood but against principalities things that we cannot see so even when you cannot see it God is fighting on your behalf now you remember the story of job right okay now what is what is Satan called Satan know is called the the the the translation for Satan is actually uh slanderer all right or the accuser okay and in the Book of Job right we see Satan right accusing
God and accusing job he's Bas he's basically said to God you know look you mean job was is so faithful to you man right he's faithful only because you bless him so much he's so rich right and God told him look you can take everything away all right only spare his life and that's exactly what Satan did right and yet job did not curse him and then Satan came back and said what oh okay uh well that's because right you know he still has his health skin for skin if touch him right he's going to curse you to
your face and God says all right take his health but spare his life and again job remained faithful so day and night Satan is in the background right accusing you directly maybe because of the sins that you have done all right and saying right that uh you're not worthy of God or he may be right accusing you right in front of God right right just like with job and he's saying that God you mean you saved this fell right who was watching you know some nonsense in the computer this morning and then now he's
in church worshiping you or this person that you saved him right he cheated on his tax but God would not allow people to curse his elect what do I mean because when Satan does that all right we have an intercessor Jesus Christ says my blood is sufficient for them I've paid their sins that's God's faithfulness in bringing blessings upon his people and not cursing them and one more point to note you know if you look at the history of Israel right it is at this point point before they crossed the river Jordan right that that they were
at their lowest they were rebelling against God right so much so that God says this generation will not see the promised land not even Moses H now if there was ever a time to inflict judgment on the Israelites it would be now God could have said okay they don't deserve me bam do your wor but no God is faithful to his Covenant his promise to I will not allow I mean if I'm going to punish them right it's on my own terms at my own time not you Satan you can't bring an accusation against my people all right so this picture of
balam all right you know in fact right when BM wanted to curse the Israelite right he ended up saying something like this God is Not Human that he should lie not a human being that he should change his mind does he speak and then not act does he promise and not fulfill I have received a command to bless he has blessed and I cannot change it this is what balam said right to balak so God is faithful right in keeping his promise or his Covenant then for the last episode right we actually you know moved
into the the the promised land okay and and and this is the point where the listeners right to Joshua right can really relate too because they were participants right of what he's about to recount okay this is the most recent okay account of their history uh then the result right okay as you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho and the leaders of Jericho fought against you and also the amorites and so on and so forth and I sent the Hornet before you which drove them out before you the two kings of the
amorites it was not by your sword or by your bow I gave you the land on which you have not labeled and cities that you have not built and you dwell in them you eat the fruit of The Vineyards and Olive Orchards that you did not plant so the result right is that Israel can now celebrate the blessing of life in the land because Yahweh has shown himself to be fighting for them so battle after battle as they advance to take over the promis land God brought the enemies all right down okay to Israel so you know the picture of the
promised land is actually uh uh heaven right it's a place of rest so at this point right uh uh in in in in Israel history okay it's 30 years after they started right uh their Conquest okay and at this juncture they had relative peace and quiet you know rest so you and I are just like the Israelites right gathered to that gathered you know at that place in sheam listening to Joshua okay Joshua is recounting the history right of their history to them and they could relate right their history all the
way back to Abraham right today you and I right can also have a connection right to them because of what Jesus Christ has done on the cross so in the same way God's faithfulness to Israel all right is Illustrated and demonstrated right to tell us that he likewise would be faithful to us until we arrived at our Promised Land so our Eternal State and salvation right is secured okay so the point right of telling them about how God has fought for them and captured the promised land for them is to tell us right that God is
faithful all right in securing their future as well as our future so episode 1 2 3 and 4 all right as as Joshua recounted the history there is one overriding theme one crucial fact that no matter what happened God is faithful so as you read through right verses uh you know two down to 13 right you so it says right I took your father Abraham I gave him Isaac I gave Esau I sent Moses and Aaron I brought you out of Egypt I I I it's all the Lord is doing it's all God right God is the main actor from the
beginning to the end now as I Was preparing this and also I had my of course my own reflection and I'm just reflecting right how God has been faithful in my own life and and the purpose of you know telling you this this morning right is so that we as part of our covenant reder and rededicating our lives to him that we will spend time reflecting on God's faithfulness in our lives but we can also reflect God's faithfulness right to FBC the our greater family okay you know uh our history is not long right it's maybe
about what 15 16 years old 14 to 16 years old depending on you know when you count and and and and I remember when I first came here in 2010 all right there were only about uh 50 maybe or less all right I I think uh Arnold can remind me all right uh feeling this uh Auditorium I remember all of us right could actually fit into Globe Cafe right for refreshment remember that and then we didn't even have uh uh Garden CF right but today uh this is uh how God has blessed us okay we have On Any Given Sunday
anywhere between 7 to 800 regular worshippers excluding those who are online I do not know how many all right and we have grown from just Sunday school boys Brigade right into something like 40 different Ministries under eight different Ministry groups and God has over the years in a short span of 15 years brought people draw people to us with gifting right in order to do his kingdom work now I'm putting this up there not so that we can you know break and then know sit on our lawers and says hey how
wonderful we are right but this tells us right how God has been so faithful to us in fact I they say right that God has been faithful to us in spite of our weaknesses in spite of our failings in spite of our uh differences and sometimes even our petty squabbles God has chosen to bless us now very quickly when we remember God's faithful us how should we respond okay the first thing that we need to do is to have a healthy fear of God now therefore okay Joshua is saying now having heard the faithfulness of God and
recounting right all that he has done for us how should we respond and of course the rightful response is fear the lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness now what does it mean to fear the lord okay we typically gravitate towards one or the other sometimes think that God is uh overbearing disciplinarian you know uh person right quite distant from us and he's there to watch over you and catch you when you're doing something wrong and then punishes you right then on the other end of the spectrum right
we have people who are very casual with God very flippant know he's almost like a Santa Claus right who goes around blessing you right and then he Lees you to your own device all right but neither of these views are correct okay so how should we approach God God is an awesome God and when you hear of how God right in his mercy and in his power and in his wisdom right has blessed Israel and blessed us okay I I I think we cannot uh approach him right uh with anything less than all and reverence you
know in fact this is what uh the Bible tells us therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken is what God has done for us and thus let us offer God acceptable worship what with reverence and with awe for our God is a consuming fire so the first thing that we need to do is to examine our attitudes that we all should have the fear of God we should all walk with some gravity in our hearts right and some humility acknowledging how God right has done so much for us now there are people of
course who do not fear God and I I suspect right that those who do not fear God all right really do not understand the immensity right of his faithfulness the immensity right of his love for us so when you catch on right to how God has loved us we should fear the lord next we should abandon our Idols Covenant renewal involves abandoning our Idols now put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord and if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord choose this day
whom you will serve whether the gods your father served in the region beyond the river or the gods of the amorites note that Joshua doesn't say say if you want to still serve or not he says whom you want to serve Why well because the reality is that if you don't serve God you serve something else there's really no sitting on a fence there's no middle ground okay if you're not serving God you are definitely serving something else you know John Kelvin says the human heart is an idol Factory but as soon as we get rid of one
another one creeps up so constantly is a battle that Christians have to fight in order to remove the various Idols in our life do you know how you would know what your idol is okay uh it's not up there but I'll read it out to you in Romans chapter 6:1 16 it says do you know that when you offer yourself to someone as obedient slaves you are slaves to the one you obey whether you are slaves to sin which leads to death or obedience which leads to righteousness so you are slaves or servant to whomever you
obey so you ask yourself right whatever that uh determines your conviction whatever that determines your decisions whatever that determines uh your time and your resources behold that would be your God that would be your Idol now of course today we don't uh Bow Down and Worship You Know physical uh graven images okay but there are many modern uh day Idols right that we have to be wary of okay we can put it this way right the pleasures of sin the pleasures of the world all right okay and what are they
all right you know now Pleasures are not in of and of itself uh wrong some are right but some are not but even things that may be good and of itself right may actually be a sin so for example are you addicted what are you addicted to entertainment do you binge watch your movies what about your relationship are you in a relationship that you shouldn't be in or do you go to places that you shouldn't be seen then you have plenty you know the the the the wealth uh the material possessions of Life those can be an
Idols right we all know that I don't have to be labor at this point you know I'm sure some of you may have read this right few days ago Chinese new year is coming right Toto has the biggest jackpot okay to what extent would you go in order to claim your price or to accumulate your wealth you know in this instan people actually you know Toto apparently are not found in uh places like tanu right people actually have to drive across state lines in order to join the queue and buy you know Toto and some even bring Lucky Charms like their
own pet snakes Okay and then Prestige position and power your careers could be an idol okay last but not least all right Covenant renewal involves choosing to serve God as for me and my house we will serve the Lord now when I contemplate right what it means to serve God right uh it's not really an easy definition have you actually thought about what it really means to serve God is your presence here today on Sunday serving God are you doing God a favor I hope you don't think that way because God really doesn't need us to be
here to worship Him how do I know wow in Acts it says The God Who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of Heaven and Earth and does not live in the temples bu by human hands and he's not served by human hands as if he needed anything rather he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else God gives us we are here because God gives us the grace and the privilege to be with him he doesn't need us to be here it is for us he doesn't need anything from us in fact it's the opposite he gives us everything all
right and Jesus says even the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many so in these two instances it is God who gives us what else can we give to God so what does it really mean for us to serve god well perhaps we can tell from first Peter whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ what does it mean well you know yesterday at prayer meeting right a sister a dear sister of ours said you
know he was she was so struck by the love of God by the immensity of his love in her life right and he says how can I love you more in in her prayer and it says it's not in the doing that I show myself to be loving you it is in the knowing you while I'm doing it so to serve the Lord right is really to obey his will and his Commandments in the Bible all right and in the process right of serving him we get to see God's immense working in our lives his outworking of his faithfulness and his love right in and through us
that we grow in our fear of him that we grow in our love for him that's what it means by serving God it's not that God needs us God gives us the privilege to serve him so that through serving him all right and if we want to serve him well we would want to understand his word well isn't it all right through serving him we get to see more more and more and more and more of his glory and that's why the Westminster cism right says what is the chief end of man the chief end of man is to glorify him and to enjoy him forever actually
John Piper says the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him and we enjoy God when we serve him and we see his out the outworking of his faithfulness through our lives that's what it means by serving God so in conclusion how will you choose so brothers and sisters let us choose life let us choose to serve god with faithfulness and sincerity now there's a covenant renewal right involves all these four points if you're taking notes right there's a bit of an epilot here all right so we read
